Family talk:James Houghton and Mary Willard (1)

From James Houghton and Mary Sawyer (1): wrong wife [14 January 2016]

I removed Person:Mary Sawyer (31) from this page since her father's probate documents name her as Mary Wilder. The Houghton Gen. does identify her as James Houghton's wife, but must be wrong. It offers no evidence, and the identification of her parents includes the qualifier "presumably". As James first child is said to be born 1690, when the alleged wife Mary Sawyer would have been 38, it seems to be a misidentification from what is known. There seems to be little other evidence about James Houghton except what is in this source to try and make an independent guess at who his wife was. I didn't find records of the births of any of his children, and Lancaster records are very spotty at the pertinent time period. So it is not clear if his wife's name was even Mary, if it was Mary with a different surname, or if it was Mary Sawyer of different parentage. --Jrich 16:55, 2 November 2010 (EDT)

Source:Snow, Nora Emma. Snow-Estes Ancestry, page 361, says that the Houghton Genealogy is wrong, since Mary Sawyer m. Thomas Wilder. "The error evidently occurred as Caleb Sawyer is mentioned in James Houghton's brother-in-law, but he married Sarah, sister of James Houghton, which explains the relationship". Merging this page into another one saying Mary Willard. Don't at current know the reasoning for that name, as Snow-Estes says Mary ---, but it is not Mary Sawyer. --Jrich 04:25, 15 January 2016 (UTC)